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Wednesday, September 26, 2012

My dad was a cop. A cop with a warped sense of humor. When we were kids, he liked nothing better than to scare us with stories of the Kingsbury Run murders. (Also known as the Torso Murders.)

If you're not from Cleveland, you may not know the story. It goes something like this:

In the 1930s, there were a series of murders in Cleveland that a lot of people compare to the Jack the Ripper murders. Twelves bodies, all decapitated, many dismembered. At the time, Eliot Ness (of Untouchables fame) was the city's Safety Director so of course, his involvement adds an extra layer of interest to the case.

My dad was a kid at the time, and I often wonder if reading about the case sparked his interest in police work. The story certainly lived on in his imagination, probably because the case was never solved.

Flash forward to yesterday and my monthly scheduled day for volunteering at the County Archives. I looked for divorce records from 1894 (and didn't find them). I checked some property records for a woman who is interested in restoring her Victorian home. And hey, Dad . . .

I spent part of the afternoon reading through the original coroner files from the Kingsbury Run murders.

I'm not sure even my fellow volunteers (who love history as much as I do) understood me standing there jumping up and down for joy and cooing my delight.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

My husband and I recently celebrated our tenth anniversary, which is
kind of wild considering that it's not unusual for me to say things
like, "We've been to that restaurant/park/event before. Remember? When
we were dating." So it doesn't seem that long ago. But time marches on.

To
celebrate, Jim and I headed to Chicago, where we
spent a lot of time when we were dating. And first married.
Before kids, really. We live in St. Louis, and sometimes on Fridays I'd
come home from work at the ad agency and want to go somewhere, do something. Head out of town. So we'd pack a quick bag and go.

I remember one such trip when we really should have checked the weather. We
were half-way to Chicago and it started snowing. Hard. We turned on the
radio and learned they'd been predicting a foot of snow. Turns out they
were right. Oops. We almost spent that weekend in an old Red Roof Inn in
the middle of rural Illinois.

But it was fun and we
always had such a great time on our impromptu road trips. Alas, they
ended when we had kids. Now with writing and other things, I haven't
really felt the need to dash out of town at the end of the day. Or maybe
my husband and I just know we can't!

Still, for the 10th, we headed out again. Only this time, we tried to plan. Tried being the key word.

We'd sit on our laptops and show each other fun things to
do in Chicago. New things. Things we'd never done before. Only we
couldn't decide on anything. We looked up hotels. But we ended up making
a reservation at the same place we'd always just showed up at before.
Then we realized our problem - these trips are not meant to be planned.
They're meant to be savored. We'd gotten to be too parental. We were
messing with the system.

So we ditched the planning and
have decided to just show up. That worked so much better. We walked downtown and found a classic burger place we'd heard about for years. We rode around on a water taxi to nowhere (we had no plans after all). We ended up at a bar chatting with a really cool guy who turned out to be a player for the Bears.

We hit Wrigley Field for a Cardinals/Cubs game - in a drizzling rain - which was so much fun because we were able to snag seats just under the overhang where everyone was gathering. We met a man who has had season tickets to the Cubs games for decades. We met a stockbroker who trades milk and dairy (I learned a ton). We met two New Yorkers who like the same NYC day spa that I do. It was really neat.

We wandered. We savored. The way it was meant to be. Although we did make one change - Jim kept our hotel reservation. These days, he likes knowing we have a room. And that's fine by me.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day, and you know what . . . I'm not going to talk like a pirate. It's not that I have anything against pirates, mind you, it's just that I'm sure you're going to "hear it" all over Facebook today. I will spare you my pirate lingo which would probably come out sounding less like Johnny Depp and more like Eroll Flynn in "Captain Blood" anyway.

Instead, I'll give you a first look at a new cover. "Panic Button," book #3 in the Button Box mystery series, comes out on December 31. What a great way to ring in the new year!

Monday, September 17, 2012

This morning, I got something fun and exciting in my box! The United Kingdom cover for Kept, the second book in my Coveted series. Piatkus Entice has been so awesome about taking care of me. And I'm stoked to reveal the second cover in my series for them!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The book hit store (and cyber) shelves yesterday and hey, last night it was #4 on the Amazon mystery list. They're going like hotcakes!

In this, #9 in the series, Pepper's working at her new job as community relations director at the cemetery. (FYI, I’m using the word work liberally since most of her time isn’t devoted to the cemetery, but to the ghosts who hang out there) when puddles start showing up in her office, and then the ghost appears who belongs to them. It doesn't take a detective to figure out that since his hands are tied, his mouth is covered with duct tape and there are cinder blocks tied to his feet, this guy was murdered.
As if communicating with a ghost who can't talk isn't trouble enough, Pepper's on-again, off-again boyfriend Quinn is back, and he still won’t talk about the day he got shot and the few minutes he was dead and came to visit her as a ghost. Maybe if the guy would open up and admit that she can talk to spirits, they might be able to get their relationship off dead (pun intended) center.

And then there’s Superman . . .

There's a big comic book convention in town, see, and a billionaire who’s got this Superman fixation. Especially appropriate since Superman was created in Cleveland where the books take place. Then there are Papper's parents, and really, does a girl expect to have her dad show up at her front door when the last she saw him was through the Plexiglass wall of a prison visiting room?

As always, Pepper's world is a whirlwind and there are plenty of surprises in store!

A special shout out to Nissa Collins who I know checks in here on Wicked. She's the one who came up with the terrific title for Supernatural Born Killers. Thanks, Nissa. I'm putting a copy of the book in the mail to you today!

While the book mainly focuses around the hero, who is a
tough-as-nails special ops soldier, and the heroine, who is a combat surgeon, I
also needed to include a world beyond the quirky MASH camp.

Besides, the characters need to get their news, right? So
PNN is the supernatural version of CNN, with a few exceptions. Sure, PNN can be
a little sensationalistic, with articles like: “Werewolf Streaker Says He’s Got
it All Covered” and “Five Things in Your Lair That Can Kill You.” But I figured
it’s a good way to offer up good information as well.

In fact, I’ve created an entire website for PNN at www.PNN-Network.com. It’s
a fun way for readers to experience first-hand kind of world I've created, and
it could also help you win a signed copy of Immortally Yours here at Something Wicked.

This will be one of the last giveaways for a signed book. To enter, just check out www.PNN-Network.com,
then post the title of your favorite article below!

Monday, September 3, 2012

There are less than one hundred days until KEPT comes out, so I've been busy getting all my ducks lined up. This week into the next, I'm participating in Romance at Random Labor Day Blog Hop! As part of the giveaway, I'm giving away a few copies of Coveted and a $15 B&N gift certificate. The giveaway is international.